THROUGH ITS SMARTMOVES PROGRAM, TELECOM company SBC Communications has been forging partnerships with home builders to ensure that the right networking and communications infrastructure is in place when homeowners move in. SBC also works with its builder partners to offer residents voice, data, and video services.
Maureen Weyel, executive director of Smart-Moves, says the program started about 10 years ago with a focus on multiple dwelling units, but SBC has been growing the single-family residential sector the past few years as housing activity expanded. Today, the telecom provider has marketing agreements with 35 of the largest national and regional builders, and 325,000 single-family residences have signed on with SmartMoves.
“We used to open up new communities and, more often than not, there wouldn’t be cable or phone services available, let alone high-speed data services,” says John Stoller, senior vice president at Pulte Homes, one of the first builders to sign on with SmartMoves. Now, service delivery dates are more in line with Pulte’s project completion dates.
